Ladysmith: The Diary of a SiegeNevinson, Henry Woodd
History
Ladysmith: The Diary of a Siege
Nevinson, Henry Woodd
Ladysmith (South Africa) -- History -- Siege, 1899-1900
Bezuidenhaut, Netherby, Tintwa, and (north of Van Reenen's) De Beer's
Pass, Cundycleugh, Muller's, and Botha's, beyond which the range ends
with the frontier at Majuba. Three or four of these passes are crossed
by waggon roads, but Van Reenen's has the only railway. The frontier,
marked by a barbed wire fence across the summit of the pass, must be
nearly forty miles from Ladysmith, but from the cliffs above it, the
little British camp can be seen like a toy through this clear African
air, and Boer sentries watch it all day, ready to signal the least
movement of its troops, betrayed by the dust. Their own main force is
distributed in camps along the hills well beyond the nine-miles' limit
ordained by the Convention. The largest camp is said to be further north
at Nelson's Kop, but all the camps are very well hidden, though in one
place I saw about 500 of the horses trying to graze. The rains are late,
and the grass on the high plateau of the Free State is not so good as
on the Natal slopes of the pass. The Boer commandoes suffer much from
want of it. When all your army consists of mounted infantry, forage
counts next to food.
At present the Van Reenen Railway ends at Harrismith, an arid but
cheerful little town at the foot of the great cliffs of the Plaatburg.
It boasts its racecourse, golf-links, musical society, and some
acquaintance with the German poets. The Scotch made it their own, though
a few Dutch, English, and other foreigners were allowed to remain on
sufferance. Now unhappily the place is almost deserted, and Burns
himself would hardly find a welcome there. In the Free State every
resident may be commandeered, and I believe forty-eight hours counts as
"residence." You see the advantage of an extended franchise. The penalty
for escape is confiscation of property, and five years' imprisonment or
L500 fine, if caught. The few British who remained have had all their
horses, carts, and supplies taken. Some are set to serve the ambulance;
a few will be sent to watch Basutoland; but most of them have abandoned
their property and risked the escape to Natal, slipping down the railway
under bales or built up in the luggage vans like nuns in a brick wall.
In one case the Boers commandeered three wool trucks on the frontier.
Those trucks were shunted on to a siding for the night, and in the
morning the wool looked strangely shrunk somehow. Yet it was not wool
that had been taken out and smuggled through by the next train. For Scot
helps Scot, and it is Scots who work the railway. It pays to be a Scot
out here. I have only met one Irishman, and he was unhappy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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